elfs | Entries tagged with food

I had a bag of fish sticks in my freezer that desperately needed to be used up, so I came up with this. I went to the store and bought a bag of cabbage coleslaw shred, without the dressing, and a 24-pack of those tiny, 4-inch "street" tortillas.

While the fish sticks cooked, I made a dressing: 1/3cup mayonnaise (lowfat is fine), 2 tbsp lime juice, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp diced softened ancho peppers (see below). If you have kids, a half-teaspoon of sugar might not be out of place, but adult palates shouldn't need it. Salt and pepper to taste.

Ancho peppers usually come dried in those cellophane pockets usually only seen in "ethnic" groceries. They're unbelievably cheap, not very hot at all, and they add a ton of flavor. To prepare it, peel the dried pepper open and wipe out the seeds with your fingers or a spoon; put the pepper into a saucepan with just enough water to cover. Heat on low (do not boil) until they're soft— this should take about 10 minutes, the time it takes the fish sticks to cook. Drain and let sit on a paper towel.

If you leave the seeds in while you simmr, the peppers come out hotter. I'll leave that to your discretion.

When the fish sticks are ready, take them out, turn the oven off, then put into the still-warm oven at least three tortillas per person. Add the peppers to the dressing, and then mix that into the cabbage shred.

Take one warmed tortilla, add one heaping tablespoon of the coleslaw, one fish stick, and an optional dollop of salsa. Three to five of these is a single serving, depending on appetite.

It takes about 20 minutes to make, and I think the whole meal comes out to something like less than three bucks a person, too.

Current Mood: satisfied
Crossposts: http://elfs.livejournal.com/1619052.html

This is what I make for breakfast when I'm working out mornings, and it's my usual winter fare.

2 celery stalks, diced
2 medium yellow onions, diced
2 large carrots, diced
1 cup diced lean ham
1½ cups French lentils
Spices: bay leaves, thyme, cumin, epazote, ajwain
Chicken broth, to cover plus an inch

Combine everything in a slow cooker. Cook on low for 8-12 hours. This should make 8-10 servings, good enough for one to two weeks, depending on what regimen you're following.

One 12-oz serving has 300 calories, contains 30 grams of complex carbohydrates (the "good" kind), 33 grams of fiber (almost your whole daily nutritional need!), and 15 grams of protein. Lentils and celery both contribute a substantial amount of sodium to your diet, so if that's a concern, be aware of that.

Feel free to add other spices. Oregano and parsley would both be nice in this. Leave in the epazote under all circumstance-- lentil makes some people gassy, and epazote seriously cuts down on that effect.

One alternative, that I haven't been brave enough to try, is to make this your only meal for two days each week: One 12-oz serving in the morning when you awake, and then again 12-oz serving five hours later, and then nothing else for the next nineteen hours. This is called "interval fasting," and if done right, including sufficient hydration throughout the day and high-intensity interval exercise before your first meal the next day, can really kick fat loss into overdrive.

Blogging this because I don't want to lose it. I'm tired of having to look this recipe up time and again.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Gut, Weird Science
Crossposts: http://elfs.livejournal.com/1517609.html

Last night, I got it into my head to go a little crazy with the#cooking. At first, I was just going to make ground buffalo sliders (basically, mini-hamburgers) with home-made biscuits, half of them cheddar & bacon, the other half with home-made tatziki sauce and cucumber topping. Tatziki sauce is that dill-and-yogurt sauce most people only encounter when ordering a lamb dish at nominally greek restaurants.

And I did exactly that. I made the biscuits first, and while they were cooking I made the patties and the tatziki sauce.

But as I was looking through the refrigerator, I realized that I had a problem: there were root vegetables that had been in there a long time and were in danger of going bad. I had to cure that immediately. So I made steak fries but with rutabaga and turnips instead of potato. To soften them, I steamed them for six minutes in the microwave first, then tossed them with olive oil and smoked paprika before putting them into the oven at 450°F for 20 minutes. That wasn't long enough; they still came out soggy. I'll have to work on the time/temperature thing some more.

Also, around all this cooking, I made cardamom ice cream, seeding the pods by hand, which took a while. I also used a fresh vanilla bean, superfine sugar, heavy cream for the infusion and whole milk for the chill. I was afraid that I'd ruined it by having the temperature up too high and might have scalded the cream, but no, when it was fully chilled two hours later, oh my gods was it good. Omaha was ecstatic.

I'm half-tempted to try something completely weird, like basil ice cream next. Never know. It might be good. And while it's pricy (a pint costs about eight bucks to make, between the fresh herbs and heavy cream, much more than the $4 pints of Häagen Dazs, but it is so much better), it's cheap enough I can afford the experiment.

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Afro Celt Sound System, Shadowman

Omaha and I went out to one of our favorite restaurants, Mashiko, also known as SushiWhore, and the sole proprietorship of dedicated chef Hajime Sato. Although it's one of the most expensive restaurants in the city, Omaha and I love it for its challenging "chef's choice" menus and for its dedication to using only sustainable fishery products.

In the evening, after an exquisite meal of sushi, sashimi, fried fish, and delicate seaweed salad, Omaha and I were on our way out to pay the bill when I happened to notice something. Hajime-san includes with every receipt a copy of the Monterey Bay Guide, a color-coded guide to the fishes that are currently sustainable, in categories of "best," "good," and "avoid." The very first item on the "avoid" is ankimo, also known as monkfish.

I asked the waitress about that, because right above my head, on the chalkboard above the sushi chef bay, was "New! We have ankimo!" and a price per serving for this delicacy. She said that Hajime-san went out of his way to only buy from sustainable fisheries, so the Monterey guide was only a general one.

Just as Omaha and I were finishing up paying for the meal, Hajime-san himself came out from behind the sushi bar and gave us a 20 minute and rather impassioned about how he had personally found a fishery off the coast of Georgia that did not use trawling lines for monkfish, worked in one area, and was working with biologists to make sure that he wasn't getting fish from a declining source.

He then went on to explain how the big sustainability groups were being co-opted by big buisinesses, and how it was becoming impossible to get certified as sustainable or organic unless you were the size of McDonalds or Whole Foods, both of which had recently received certification for practices he felt weren't entirely legitimate. Those groups had, however, the cash necessary to throw at unspecified certification groups and could buy a lot of good will from those groups. The same issue arises with land farming. Hajime-san said that he went out of his way to purchase only from sustainable sources, that he personally visited as many small-scale fisheries as he could to ensure he was buying only from sustainable outlets, and that he did so even if those fisheries were too small to make the necessary donations

It was surprising that he took that much time out from behind the kitchen to make his case that he was doing the best he can, and if he didn't always abide by the sustainibility certification rules, it was because the rules were blunt instruments that could sometimes be corrupted by money, influence, and the appearance but not the substance of doing good. It was a pretty solid case.

Omaha and I can't afford to eat at Mashiko's often, and to the best of my knowledge there are exactly two steakhouses that bill themselves as sustainable: one in Sydney, Australia, and the other in Oregon, USA, so tacking other dining experiences with remotely similar expectations is probably unwise. But it was good to hear his case, I appreciated it, and it encourages me to eat with him more often.

Current Mood: full

The other day, Omaha had a meeting in the next town overthat was scheduled just half an hour before it was time for me to go pick up Kouryou-chan from school. So I offered her a ride, knowing that there would only be about a 15-minute layover between dropping her off and going to get the kid, after which Omaha's meeting would probably be over and it would be time for me to retrace the route and pick her back up.

The day was bright and sunny, so after dropping Omaha off, instead of sitting in my car, I sat on the steps of strip mall where the meeting was being held and sketched out some crazy ideas that had been floating around in my head all day. The strip mall was an ordinary suburban type-- a restaurant where Omaha was having her meeting, a few empty units (commonplace, in this economy), a computer repair store, a signage shop, a tax preparation place, a sub shop. Detached from the main strip was a gas station with a quick-mart.

The next thing I knew, I was driving to pick up Kouryou-chan, with a 32-oz Coca-Cola in the cupholder.

I'd been doing so well. Monday through Wednesday, I'd held on well to a Paleo diet, having meals entirely of vegetables and some meat, some nuts. I'd thrown a little extra dairy in but not too much, less than 8oz. a day in most cases.

I could remember clearly walking to the gas station, buying the soda pop, walking out, getting into the car and leaving. But it wasn't until I was driving to the school, and had taken a few sips, that the conscious Elf, the man I identify as and want to be (and sometimes achieve being) kicked back in.

It was one of those weird "the unthinking you" takes over. After three and a half days of eating just right, I found myself robotically buying something I had earlier declared I did not want, only to come to my senses after consuming a few ounces of it.

Never trust your future self to be more virtuous than you are. I use that line on myself a lot. It's pretty much the bulwark of my Getting Things Done paradigm. Part of the reason it works for me is because I've thought a lot about the breakdown between my current self, my past self, and my future self, especially as a science fiction writer. So now, when I say, "I'll do it later," my brain re-writes it to read: "My future self will do it," and then, "Don't trust that guy. If you won't do it now, he won't do it either. You should do it now."

But sometimes, you can't even trust that guy right this moment.

Current Mood: nauseated

Mark Bittman latest article is Is Junk Food Really Cheaper? in which he writes about the commonplace canard that "Junk food is cheaper than real food." He writes:

A typical order for a family of four – for example, two Big Macs, a cheeseburger, six chicken McNuggets, two medium and two small fries, and two medium and two small sodas – costs, at the McDonald's a hundred steps from where I write, about $28. ... Despite extensive government subsidies, hyperprocessed food remains more expensive than food cooked at home. You can serve a roasted chicken with vegetables along with a simple salad and milk for about $14, and feed four or even six people.

Jamie Zawinski has a famous quote: "Linux is only free if your time is worthless." His point is simple: it takes time to install and master Linux. Compared to the idiotproofing of a Mac, Linux has a learning curve. Making Linux work isn't free, but knowing it is a skill worth having, both personally and financially. It was for me.

I've been on a quasi-paleo diet, eating paleo meals much more often. Last night I subjected my family to shredded roasted brussel sprouts and pork chops, and I liked it, but the shredded sprouts were visually unappealing. I'm hesitant to use the shredded "cauliflower as rice substitute" because I worry we'll get the same effect. But here's the thing:

My value system includes the idea that cooking is pleasure. I enjoy cooking. I enjoy turning raw vegetables and meats into food. So much so that I'm willing to dedicated between one and two hours of my day doing that, every day.

(I disdain the raw food diet for the simple reason that, if the Paleos are correct, our guts are evolutionarily post-cooking: paleobiological data indicate that, after the discovery of fire, our intestines got shorter because fire prepares food for digestion and releases nutrients. It was a rapid and profound evolutionary change, but it was a change that happened pre-H. sap. We're animals that cook.)

Bittman's comment that "real food is cheaper..." only applies if you think your time is worthless. The fact is you have to calculate the value of real food, and the time and effort and experience of cooking, into your equation. I've made that choice. You may find that your long-term health (Hell, your short-term health; paleo effects are pronounced even after only 8 weeks) and your personal eating pleasure are worth the time it takes to learn how to cook, and to cook for yourself every day, and to learn how to optimize the periphery of the grocery store. I recommend it, but I won't force it on ya.

Current Mood: amused

Last night, Kouryou-chan and I cooked an enchilada casserole. It was three cups of grated cheese (a combination of cheddar and flagship), a half-pound of beef (not in the recipe, but we had some in the 'fridge that needed to be used up), sour cream, shallots (we were out of onions, so we grabbed the nearest equivalent), and various herbs, oregano, parsley, all mixed together. Then, we simmered tomato sauce, water, minced garlic and minced green peppers, chili powder and cumin until it was thick.

We wrapped the filling in tortillas, arranged them in a casserole dish, poured the sauce on top and sprinkled some more cheese.

She actually did most of the work. Only the grating of the cheese intimidated her; our cuisinart broke, so we had to grate the cheese by hand and she has tiny hands. She complained about getting her hands dirty while we rolled the tortillas, she simmered the sauce down to thicken it, she put it in the oven.

They were the most ridiculously filling things we've had in a long time. Absolutely delicious, down to the very end. And now she has another favorite recipe.

Current Mood: full

Storm made dinner tonight. Delicious! Now she knows how to make tacos on her own. Ground beef sautee'd with garlic and onions, cumin and chili powder. We discussed more knife skills for doing tomatoes and lettuce, and she shredded the cheese.

It's not a hard thing, tacos. But it's way better than ramen noodles, and the objective is to give her and her sister feed-yourself skills in college.

Current Mood: full

"I brought this for dinner," said one of the guests to our bi-weekly Sunday D&D game. "This" turned out to be a 30oz salmon fillet that he had caught himself earlier that week.

There was a moment of scrambling. Omaha and I hadn't done the weekly grocery shopping yet, for one thing. We looked at each other and wondered aloud about how we could cook it. We hadn't planned on this.

I cast about the kitchen. I thought. "There are peaches there," I said, pointing to the fruit basket. "And two Mexican zucchini." Big ones. "We have tomatoes in the back yard. Do we have any red onion?"

"There are two halves in the fridge. Somebody keeps slicing new onions without checking to see if there's already one in there."

Oops.

Dinner was salmon roasted in butter, a peach-tomato-red onion salsa topping tempered with lime juice, and broiled zucchini coins with sweated onions and Parmesan. It took all of 20 minutes to put together. I had a lovely white wine. I am the Iron Chef!

Really, D&D games shouldn't be this well-fed. Where are the Cheetos, the overdoses of soda pop, the bad pizza?

Current Mood: full

Stormy and I made Chinese Hot-Pot, also known as Shabu-Shabu. This is a simple dish: take a good hunk of steak, a good hunk of pork chop, and a hunk of chicken breast, slice them all up very thin, along with mushrooms, zucchinis, summer squashes, and broccoli. Stormy got to practice her knife skills. She's not very good with a knife, and it might take a nasty cut for me to finally convince her to keep her fingers safe. She kept splaying her fingers close to the knife.

The point of hot-pot is to let people cook these raw things in a deep pot of simmering broth. Slicing the meat to be less than ¼ of an inch thick lets it cook within a minute or so. This with a pair of sauces made with beef broth, mirin, soy sauce, and various herbs, one sweet and one salty, was the whole of the meal.

It was delicious. The family loves hot-pot, but it takes so long to eat and it's really a winter meal. Even in the early fall, it's too warm to fill the dining room with steam. And it takes forever to eat, so it's not something we can prepare on a night when someone has dance, or choir, or a D&D game, or a meeting, or Goddess only knows what else.

Current Mood: full

This evening I made our macaroni & cheese, but rather than use Wisconsin cheddar (or our favorite alternative, local cheesemaster Kurt Beecher's Flagship cheese), I decided to try using raclette, a cheese of Swiss origin that has a reputating for being ideal when melted.

It has a very similar flavor to cheddar, although its nose is much stronger and it has a pronounced bitter aftertaste. It was exquisite, and Kouryou-chan ate all of hers, although she said that it was much drier that Flagship (well, it did come halfway 'round the Earth, whereas Flagship I get from the cheesemaker's shop, where you can watch the curds being made). I think I may have put too many breadcrumbs on top, and that may have contributed to the sense of dryness.

Still, a worthy experiment. Next time I'm going to play with the complimentary cheese, which this time was run-of-the-mill 12-month Parmesan (not the stuff in the green cylinder).

Or I may go all out and make it with marscapone.

Current Mood: full

I must do something very right with the coffee I brew at home. I don't know what it is, but it sure works. I use just any old bean (right now, I'm trying the Starbuck's Tribute blend), but I use a half-height French Press (two cups of coffee per batch) and let them sit for four minutes before pouring. I always prepare more water than the press will hold, and I use the remaining water to warm my cup. I alway pour quickly after pressing, and it's great, smooth and never bitter.

This morning, I had an opportunity to have some of Starbuck's Pike Place Market Roast, as brewed by Starbucks, and you know, it was very bitter. Even a four ounce cup couldn't be saved with a teaspoon of sugar, and I never use more than that at home. That may explain why the salting doesn't do much for me: I don't make coffee that needs saving.

Man, my third post in a row about coffee.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: The Apples, Natri Ba Makom

So, following the hot new trend of putting a pinch of salt into your coffee to cancel the bitter taste, I have to say that I'm disappointed with the experiment. Either I tasted no difference, or the salt was sufficient that it distracted from the coffee taste, and I was unhappy with it either way.

Which is kind-of sad. When you blog, you want to be able to teach about something great, and I have nothing great to report. Salting coffee doesn't seem to do much for me. Then again, I may have a reason for that. See the next post.

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Fiona Apple, Fast as You Can

I totally blew my diet today, but it was worth it. I made mint-chip ice cream. Cream, sugar, and mint leaves all heated to 170F, whisked, then chilled and pressed through a strainer, heated back up and made into a custard with egg yolks (a lot of egg yolks), then chilled back down to near-freezing, put into the ice cream stirrer and hardened. Then I scooped spoonfuls of the ice cream into a chilled bowl, drizzled melted dark chocolate onto the spoonful, then added more.

Five ingredients. 100% organic. Utterly delicious. The family ate it all up.

Current Mood: full

It's funny how food consciousness and consumer pressure shapes the grocery store layout. What's hip and interesting often gets massive shelf space, whereas what doesn't sell well gets often desultory placement on a boring mid-shelf, far out of sight.

Today's example: in the staples aisle at my neighborhood grocery store (a QFC-branded Kroger outlet), there are eleven varities of rice (not including various "instant" types), some of them quite pricey in their 12-oz plastic containers with screw-on caps. There are four varieties of cous-cous. In the vegetables, there are six different varieties of potato. There are multiple varieties of sugar. There are several different kinds of salt, for Horus's sake.

And there, all alone is the staples aisle, is one lonely bag of lentils. And it was labeled as such: "Lentils."

But there are all kinds of lentils: French lentils, Spanish Pardina lentils, Green lentils (that's what was in the bag), Tan, Red, Black, and Mexican lentils. There are the Indian varieties, which are more like beans: Chana dal, Urad dal, Masoor dal, and Toor dal, among others.

Lisakit, bless her heart, found me a recipe for Masoor dal hummus (now that's a linguistic mash-up!), which is great because lentils lack an amino acid that other ingredients in hummus supply. (Saying so is close to nutritionalism, but let's back this up: cultures where the pulse (the family of plants which includes small beans and lentils) is a foundational food also eat a lot of sesame (nee' tahini), and they probably do so for a reason.)

Having to visit a specialty store to lay in a supply of these different kinds of pulses is a fun exercise, but it's also a frustrating one. It's fairly obvious that QFC is trying hard to have what its audience wants-- that's how it stays in business, after all. And most pulses last for months in cellar storage, so buying in bulk makes sense.

I'm sure QFC has a lot of vegetarian customers, however. It's in that kind of neighborhood, full of foodies and yuppies and their self-indulgent radicalized animal-lovin' children. These people aren't well-served by having the most common protein source most of the world uses relegated to a few token bags on an out-of-the-way shelf wedged between the rice and the "ethnic foods" sections.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Rocket Scientists, Dream in Red

Went to the grocery store today to pick up some carrots, and noticed that lots of things have these new rectangular tags in calming, organic greens and brown earth-tones. The store touts this ~~advertising campaign~~ information program, called "Simple Nutrition," as a new way of understanding what you're buying, and they all read things like "Organic," "Gluten Free," "Sodium Smart," "Natural," "Lean Protein," etc.

I propose they add two:

Onions, milk, yogurt, real peanut butter, steak, potatoes, broccoli, eggs, cheese, sauerkraut, walnuts, coffee, sugar, sour cream, kimchee, chicken, grapefruit, apples, celery, wine, carrots, beans, rice.

Doritos, most grocery bread, cheetoes, most breakfast cereals, instant rice, instant potatoes, instant anything, canned soups, anything labeled a "frozen novelty," anything labeled a "snack," and anything that feels compelled to tout on its cover just how healthy it is.

Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: Craig Pruess, Valley of Peace

Saturday night, I cooked Alton Brown's Swedish Meatball recipe, along with egg noodles and roasted brussel sprouts doused in vinegar and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. The only substitutions I made were: I used ghee instead of clarifying the butter myself, and challah instead of white bread, since we didn't have any white bread in the house.

Although she didn't like the brussel sprouts (trim, halve, and drown in olive oil, then place cut side face-down to a pan and roast at 375°F for fifteen minutes, then flip and roast an additional ten; drizzle with balsamic vinegar and bacon bits), the meatballs vanished and she went back for seconds. Goodness, have I found something savory that Kouryou-chan likes? That's unpossible!

Even better, she ate the leftovers for lunch Sunday.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: The Ride of the Valkyrie

Last night as an experiment I decided to make Chinese hot-pot, creating a large spread of briefly seared but otherwise raw steak and chicken sliced very thinly, along with another of zucchini, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower heads, and a couple of sesame-based sauces, one sweet, one salty. For Kouryou-chan's sake, I also threw in a traditional honey mustard-- although not as good as usual; I didn't decrystallize the honey beforehand, and I used mayonnaise instead of sour cream. She didn't seem to mind. The broth I used was a quart of my home-made chicken stock, lightly salted with Thai fish sauce.

It took forever to eat, and everyone got to dip their spears into the hot pot. We were at the table for an hour, with plenty of time to talk about school, or work, or whatever. Which makes for a very nice family ritual. I may try for something more esoteric next time, and a better selection of sauces. I'm big on making sauces and dressings myself these days, especially since I have mastered the fine art of emulsification.

Current Mood: full

Fast food is decadent. It's carefully tuned to hit the high points of the ape experience of eating-- salt, fat, sugar. Even the bun is optimized to remind your ape self of the pleasure of tearing flesh without much resistance, while the sauce is laced with smoke-flavorings designed to trigger the atavistic memories of meat cooked over a fire. If that's not decadence-- putting all of the pleasures of raw eating into one obscenely dense package, leaving out nothing, what is?

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: OSI, Terminal

Killer 'graf:

Compared to animals eating only rat chow, rats on a diet rich in high-fructose corn syrup showed characteristic signs of a dangerous condition known in humans as the metabolic syndrome, including abnormal weight gain, significant increases in circulating triglycerides and augmented fat deposition, especially visceral fat around the belly. Male rats in particular ballooned in size: Animals with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained 48 percent more weight than those eating a normal diet. ... Male rats given water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in addition to a standard diet of rat chow gained much more weight than male rats that received water sweetened with table sugar, or sucrose, in conjunction with the standard diet. The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks, while the high-fructose corn syrup solution was half as concentrated as most sodas.

[Emphasis mine]

Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain.

Current Mood: nauseated
Current Music: Thomas Dolby, Hyperactive

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Elf Sternberg

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Elf Sternberg

Entries tagged with food

Comfort Food Fish Tacos

Breakfast Recipe: Ham & Lentil Soup

I have Iron Chef'd out!

It's not often dinner comes with a passionate 20-minute lecture...

How did that Coke get into my hand?

JWZ and the Paleo Diet

Kouryou-chan cooks Enchiladas

Storm cooked tacos tonight.

"There's nothing in this house to eat!"

Chinese Hot-Pot!

Raclette Macaroni & Cheese

I must be doing something right with my coffee...

Salting your coffee: negative result

I made mint chip ice cream!

How food consciousness shapes an industry...

Food Labeling Campaign

Apparently, I have found the perfect formula for feeding Kouryou-chan

Now that's slow food...

An observation on Burger King

Another addiction I must kick this time.